


The same way home

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared)



Series: The Scorching One [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: remix redux iv, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-08
Updated: 2006-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“ It's not a joke if you mean it deep down, Remus. You're never to talk about my boyfriend like that again,” Sirius insists with quiet dignity. “I don't think I could ever make you understand or appreciate what I see in him, but I need you to accept that I <em>do</em> see something in him. Even if it's only out of respect for me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The same way home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aillil](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=aillil).
  * Inspired by [Seven things Remus knows about Sirius](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/988) by aillil. 



> Written for the Remix Redux (I know what you did last remix) for [](http://aillil.livejournal.com/profile)[**aillil**](http://aillil.livejournal.com/) based on her untitled drabble about [](http://aillil.livejournal.com/15080.html#cutid1)**seven things that Remus knows about Sirius**  
>   
> Originally posted [ **here**](http://red-squared.livejournal.com/33659.html).

_We put the world on hold, two young men growing old_  
_ We talk of years like lost weekends and the harbour shrugs_  
_ Because friends are getting fewer, and we vow life will be fuller_  
_ But if the last of our dreams is broken, we'll walk the same way home_

(“Charlie No. 1” – from The Whitlams' “Eternal Nightcap”)

~~*~~

He can't find his wand.

It's only one of a series of nightmares he desperately wants to awaken from, but everything hurts too much for it to not really be happening.

Having Snape come to the Shack to find them… He'd almost attacked a human being – more than one – while transformed… And Sirius…

He wasn't able to remember what had happened last night, after he transformed. He still can't remember how he got back to the school to wake up in one of the infirmary's private rooms, or how he came to be bundled up in the tatters of Sirius' robe. But only a moment or so after waking, he was joined by the Headmaster, who thoughtfully brought with him not only a tray of breakfast, but several new nightmares to add to Remus' already impressive list.

_…although Harry tells me that Peter Pettigrew escaped, after stupefying Ron Weasley…disappeared into the Forest…spoke with the Centaurs, none of them saw him and even if they had, they wouldn't be able to tell him apart from any other rat…_

…Sirius prevented you from attacking the children…drove you into the Forest and away from them…

…thousands of Dementors, all of the ones stationed around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade circled them before closing in…too many…overwhelmed…couldn't maintain the transformation and returned to human…

…Patronus…

…Patronus…

…Patronus…

…should be proud of everything you taught him…

…wouldn't relent…scheduled for the Kiss, there was nothing I could say to prevent…Miss Granger's Time-Turner, but it's probably best that stays between the two of us, wouldn't you agree…unfortunate hippogriff…also liberated…best for everybody they escaped that way…no tracks to find…

…unpleasant development…whole school knows, but I would be grateful if you…of course, I respect your decision, however…know my thoughts on the matter…accept your resignation with reluctance…sorry to see you go…

And now he can't find his wand.

He hopes Peter doesn't have it – there's no telling what sort of damage Peter can do with it, not the least of which involves framing Remus with it. _He didn't need my wand to manage it the first time, though…_

Checking the relatively clear ground around him, he can't immediately see his wand.

_Fuck._

As little as he likes the idea of strolling defenceless into the Forbidden Forest, there is nothing for it but to go further in to try and find his wand – it's not that he can't afford another one, but it's an expense he'd prefer to avoid.

He's barely more than a few metres in when there is a resounding crashing in the bushes, as though something _enormous _is thrashing through them, and the next thing he knows, he is eye-to-eye with a hippogriff.

Before he has the presence of mind to bow, he is made emphatically aware of something cold and wet pressing against his palm and when he looks down to see what it is, _Sirius _is there, with Remus' wand between his teeth and his nose in Remus' hand.

He heart stopped beating when Dumbledore said that Sirius was scheduled for the Kiss – he's not sure when it resumed its steady pulse, but he can feel it racing now.

“You… What are you doing still here?” he asks stupidly, staring in shock.

Sirius spits his wand out at his feet and barks.

“That doesn't tell me anything!” He knows he probably sounds hysterical, but he's had so little sleep and… _You're supposed to be safely escaped and on your way to… I don't know… to anywhere but here, but you… _“Change back,” he says, stooping to pick up his wand. Sirius growls again, and shakes his head – a gesture that looks completely foreign on a dog. “I can't understand what – Change back, please,” he asks again, kneeling to see Sirius better.

If he needed any further proof that last night wasn't a nightmare, it is standing on four legs in front of him, all emaciated form, matted fur and cracked and broken nails.

“Why won't you change back? Is it because you gave away your robe?”

He still has it, stupid sentimental creature that he is, but it's carefully packed away in his trunk. Up until now, it was the only tangible proof he had that Sirius really _had _escaped.

Sirius growls again, sounding more impatient this time.

“I don't- Why are you still here? It isn't safe for you to be here, still. Was it… Was it just for me?”

Sirius grins, and barks sharply the way he always used to, to indicate agreement. A bark for 'yes'. A growl for 'no'. It was more so that James and…and yes, _Peter, _could understand one another when they were all transformed. There wasn't always the opportunity to transform back and forth when they had a werewolf on their hands, but at the same time, it wasn't easy for a stag, a dog and a rat to communicate with one another without developing a sophisticated, _human _code.

_Human_…

He realises something, abruptly.

“They can track you, can't they? When you're human. You managed to elude them as long as you were in your second shape, but last night… Was that the longest you stayed untransformed since escaping?” Another sharp, affirmative bark. “You knew. The longer we spent talking, explaining everything, the closer they were getting to you. You…”

No wonder Sirius had been so edgy last night. No wonder he wanted to kill Peter first and explain later. No _wonder _he kept prodding Remus, urging him to hurry up with the explanation so that they could get _on _with it.

And no wonder there had been thousands upon thousands of Dementors swarming the grounds. They'd been closing in on him, knowing he couldn't have been far, even after he transformed…

_I would have gone mad, knowing they were getting closer with every moment I stayed human. I wish I had half your courage._

Then again, Sirius had always been brave, braver than the rest of them.

_I'm certainly not brave, I just go through what is there, because I have to, because it's the only way. You, on the other hand, deliberately choose the more difficult path again and again, knowing full well what you're doing._

“A tracking charm, then,” he says, thinking out loud. “Something they put into your skin when you were human. It probably shifts and becomes useless when you change your skin… It's the same for werewolves in Britain, except they mark them twice for just that reason – once while human-shaped, and once while wolf-shaped…”

He knows this only from talking with other werewolves in Britain. Having registered himself in France, he has no first hand experience with the local Ministry's tracking charms, but it shouldn't be too difficult to work out how to remove it from first principles…

“Will you come home with me?”

Sirius growls softly – not a proper 'no', then. More like an apologetic one.

“You should,” he says, although he doesn't want to insist too strongly. “I can remove the tracking charm, and you'd be able to move about freely. You could even Appa- Wait. Is it safe for me to side-along Apparate you?”

Another soft growl.

“Ah.” He starts to stand, brushing the leaves from his robe.

“Would you… Would you come to London?” Sirius looks up at him, not barking 'yes', but not growling 'no', either. “You'd remember where to come, I think. I've not moved since… I haven't moved.”

He isn't kept waiting long before Sirius barks 'yes', and when he hears it, he feels absurdly pleased.

“I'll be waiting for you.”

~~*~~

“Does the transformation hurt less?” Sirius asks, looking up from his notes.

“_Much_ less,” he replies, passing Sirius a cup of tea. Sirius takes it with a grateful smile before frowning down at his notes again.

It still surprises him, how little effort it took to remove the tracking charm that the Azkaban guards had put on Sirius. It surprises him even more that Sirius then chose to stay with him instead of resuming his search for Peter.

“And you can control the wolf-consciousness? When you're wolf-shaped?”

“Mmm,” he murmurs, taking a sip of his own tea, admiring how well Sirius looks now, after only a few weeks in his care. When this Sirius smiles, he almost looks the Sirius that Remus remembers.

“Then why lock yourself up?” Sirius asks, oblivious to Remus' staring. “As I recall, that was what you hated most.”

“Because it's safer,” he replies, moving to stand by Sirius' side.

Ever since the charm was removed, Sirius has been looking into the differences between the Animagus and the werewolf transformation, presumably in an attempt to satiate his own curiosity if nothing else. It's like old times, when Sirius could seemingly spend days on end searching for an answer to something that kept him awake at night.

His focus at times like this is frightening in its intensity. They've barely talked about anything else in the four days since Remus removed the tracking charm, allowing Sirius to transform back and _talk _to him properly.

Sirius turns to look at him over one shoulder, and he realises he hasn't actually answered the question he was asked when Sirius slowly says, “All right…”

“I'm still _me_, but things don't look the same when I'm transformed as they do when I'm human-shaped. I'm looking at everything from a different angle, I can't see as clearly but I can smell _everything _a hundred times more clearly. The ground beneath my feet feels different, and there's all of this information that my wolf-body detects, but my human-brain has to work very hard to interpret it, so…”

“…you don't know what to do with it,” Sirius finishes for him, and he nods in agreement.

“Is it like that with the Animagus transformation?” he asks, settling into an armchair that is squished between two of the heavy bookcases.

“It was at first. I'd get confused, and for a little while, I'd have to let the dog-consciousness take over and trust the instincts of my second shape.”

“See, but I _can't _trust the instincts of my wolf-shape,” he says. “And I can't practice the way you did, by staying in my second shape for entire weekends at a time. The one time I tried it...” he starts to confess, ashamedly. It had been a stupid thing to do, but he so desperately wanted _not _to have to lock himself up. “I remember feeling anxious, and then frustrated, and then I started to panic because my body wasn't working the way I needed it to. If I'd come across anybody in that state, there's a good chance I might have attacked them out of confusion.”

“That doesn't really tell us anything – that has more to do with practice, and being comfortable wearing a different skin,” Sirius says authoritatively, pulling a sheet of parchment out of the small pile he's accumulated. “It's nothing to do with whether your intellect is human or animal. What about… Can you read when transformed?”

“I don't know,” he says. Sirius gives him a strange look, and he adds, “I've never tried. Can you?”

“It took me a while to interpret what I was looking at, but it was possible after a while. I can read, understand and remember.” Sirius grins at him. “I have to transform back if I want to _write,_ though.”

He should have known better than to leave Sirius to his own devices to return to hi- _their _flat in London. In the three months between Remus leaving Hogwarts and Sirius finally arriving in London, the Prophet was full of reports on 'the notorious Right Hand of Lord Voldemort' popping up in all sorts of places, ranging from Ibiza to Tibet.

And at almost every stopping point, Sirius sent home letters – short scraps of parchment written in a script that was disguised using Sirius' left hand, written on the backs of the letters that Remus sent him and delivered by exotic birds. Last month, the arrival in London of a Japanese crane, followed the next day by a brilliant blue kingfisher, had sent London's ornithological community into something of a state.

Still, Sirius made it here safely, and the only person that he writes to now is– _Wait, what time is it?_

“It's almost one o'clock,” he calls after glancing at the clock, smiling to himself as Sirius jumps in surprise. It's not the first time Sirius' single-mindedness has caused him to lose track of the time, and it _certainly _won't be the last. “I cleared the Floo after making the tea, so you shouldn't have any trouble reaching Gryffindor Tower.”

“Thanks,” Sirius says sincerely, already starting to put his research away into neat stacks. “I don't know if Harry'll know what to expect and I don't want him to have given up and gone back to bed before I can get through. It would take forever to set up another meeting, and the sooner I can warn him -”

“Is it really that urgent? He's got Dumbledore and Mad-Eye looking out for him,” he says, rising from the armchair as Sirius also stands.

“I know, I know, but you know what they're like. They think that by not telling you that manticores exist you'll never be stung by one. I doubt they'll have told Harry that Karkaroff was a Death Eater – not if they're trying to cultivate links between the three schools.”

He can't deny the truth in that statement. The Headmaster in particular is a firm believer that complete ignorance affords the strongest protection.

Then again, Harry is still very young, and Remus knows – as Sirius does not – that Harry doesn't think twice about getting into trouble or putting himself in life-threatening danger even when he knows very well what the risks are.

Then _again_, it isn't his place interfere in Sirius' business. While they're civil to one another and starting to become comfortable around one another, their interaction still isn't as fluid as it once was. Until it is, he has no right to comment on what is or is not appropriate for Sirius to discuss with his godson.

“I should get started,” Sirius says, letting himself out of the study.

He doesn't follow after, not wanting to intrude on their conversation, and makes sure the door is closed so that he doesn't inadvertently overhear. If Sirius wants to tell him about the discussion, all right, and if not, well, that will be all right too.

Going over to the desk, he smiles to see the scroll of parchment that has the ingredients and method for the Wolfsbane Potion scrawled across it in spidery writing. If Sirius is able to brew the potion – and having studied to be a Healer, he would have assisted with the brewery and distillation of _far _more complex potions than this one – he will be able to safely see and be with a human Sirius, while transformed. For the first time ever.

The writing is smudged and splotched and the parchment is already ragged in more places than one. While Sirius would no doubt prefer a neater copy, this particular version has it's own appeal. The obvious violence in the words of the recipe – scratched so deep in places that the parchment has torn on either side of it – is testament to the fact that Severus was _made_ to write it out, to atone for spreading Remus' secret amongst the students and forcing him to leave.

_Perhaps I should have it framed, _he thinks idly. He starts to smooth out the parchment with one hand, but before he can finish the study door slams open and he jumps in shock, almost spilling his tea over the scrolls.

“Sirius?”

“Re- Oh, I'm sorry, Remus. I didn't realise you were still here,” Sirius says, with an apologetic smile.

“How's our boy?”

“He's all right,” Sirius says shortly, before rifling through one of the shelves.

“Did he ask where you were calling from?”

“Of course he did. Told him I'd broken into a wizarding home – which isn't far from the truth – and he seemed to accept it. Do we have a map of all of the major- Ah, there it is,” Sirius says triumphantly, yanking the scroll free.

“Was he able to tell you anything about -”

“No, we got cut off.”

“At _one o'clock_ in the morning?”

“Probably just some stupid first year sleep walking or on his way to a midnight snack. Frightened the life out of Harry, you should have seen the expression on his face,” Sirius says with a laugh.

“Were _you _seen?” he asks in alarm.

“No, of course not, I would have said otherwise,” Sirius says dismissively, unrolling the map. “Anyway, I was thinking that it's probably for the best if I go back.”

“Back? Where?” Surely not to Azkaban?

“To Hogwarts. That way I can see him face to face, and I won't have to worry about owls being followed, or insomniac Gryffindors walking in on me.” Sirius is engrossed in the map, but he looks up and at him before asking, “Why? Do you think I shouldn't?”

“No, I don't think that,” he says quickly, and then immediately wonders why he said that. He knows the answer, of course. For one thing, he has no right to interfere in Sirius' decisions, and for another…

For another, he knows that it was eventually going to come to this. There was no way Sirius would sit in the corner twiddling his thumbs when someone had singled out his godson with malicious intent. Sirius doesn't do anything half-heartedly.

_You either do it or you don't, but once you've decided to do something, you only stop when it's done, _he thinks to himself, as Sirius smiles and turns back to the map. This man doesn't look much like the Sirius he remembers, _his _Sirius, but there is so much about him that hasn't changed.

_Sometimes I find it disconcerting how much of yourself you pour into your actions; I'm afraid that you'll lose yourself, but somehow you don't. _

He hopes that this hasn't changed, either.

_You always find home, just like your alternate shape._

~~*~~

“What's this?” Sirius asks, as Remus hands him the parcel.

“It's… Well, it's not really a gift. Sort of a surprise,” he says, wishing he'd spent a little more time rehearsing what to say to Sirius.

“A surprise?” Sirius says, his creamy white teeth seeming to split his face in half as he smiles. “More like your way of telling me there's something I've forgotten to pack,” he says, pulling at the knots of string binding the package together.

That statement is so blatantly unfair and _wrong, _– particularly given the effort he's made not to comment on the stupidity of Sirius setting off to be closer to Harry – that he almost snaps at the other man before he remembers himself.

Sirius looks puzzled as he unwraps the cloth cover. “This was _my _robe…” he says in confusion, unravelling the robe that Remus used to wrap the surprise, “…and I already packed- “

“That's not it,” he says calmly, as Sirius looks at him quizzically before shaking it out. Something falls out of the folds and clatters to the floor. “That is,” he says equally calmly, as Sirius looks down and sees a wand.

The wand that Sirius' family ordered for him before sending him to Hogwarts is probably securely locked up in a Ministry vault somewhere, if it wasn't snapped in half the day Sirius was arrested. But this one, _this _wand is one of the ones that Dumbledore and Meadowes had Olivander design specially for the Order. Sirius' old wand was particularly suited for Transfiguration, but the wand he's clutching in his hand is particularly suited to the purpose it was expressly crafted for.

War.

“It arrived too late,” he says. It had arrived along with Lily's, James', Peter's and his own new wands, about three days after the Potters were murdered and Sirius was taken away. Because the parcel was addressed to James Potter it was redirected to Sirius, and because Sirius hadn't been home to receive it, Remus'd been the one to sign for it. “I almost threw it out, but… Well, I'm glad I didn't.”

“Why are you giving it to me now?” Sirius asks, looking at it and resisting the urge to try it out.

“You might need it.”

“If I do magic with a wand, I'm as good as sending up a flare for the Ministry,” Sirius says warily, but he tucks the wand away behind the sash of his robe.

“I was thinking you might need it in an emergency,” he says carefully. “Particularly if you run into Peter again.”

“You don't really think I'm going after Peter again, do you? I already said I wasn't, that I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to begin. Or is it that you think I won't come back?”

It has always frightened him how easily Sirius can read him – thirteen years apart have changed Sirius more than they have changed him so while he is still learning this new Sirius, Sirius can still deduce his thoughts with alarming accuracy.

“I didn't say that! I might not think that your going to Hogsmeade is the cleverest thing to do, but that doesn't mean I think you're never coming back.”

“What did you say?” _Fuck. _“You don't think I should go to Hogsmeade? Why didn't you say something?”

“Because it's none of my business,” he says, before he can bite his tongue. “It doesn't matter what I think.”

“Of course it matters what you think! Remus,” Sirius says in a surprisingly gentle tone of voice, “why didn't you say something before? You might not have said I was going to go after Peter again, but you thought it, didn't you?”

“Of course I thought it! The only reason you were able to escape was because of your hatred for him, the whole of last year you only thought about killing him, probably your first thought upon escaping was how best to kill him, and – What are you laughing at?”

“I was just thinking – and this is stupid – that the first thing I thought when I got out of there was that I should go and see James. It was as though,” Sirius continues, starting to laugh, “the only reason I hadn't seen him in so long was because I was locked up, and not because he was dead. Isn't that stupid? So once I was out, the first thing I thought was 'I'm free, I can go and see what James is up to, now'…” Sirius laughs again, turning away and wiping a hand over his face. “Closest I could get was going South to see how Harry was before returning North to Scotland.”

The words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them. “You didn't think to come and see me?”

“No, actually,” Sirius admits, turning back to smile at him apologetically. “I thought you were dead, too.” He doesn't know what his face looks like, but when Sirius sees his expression, he adds, “That… It wasn't supposed to sound like that. I've forgotten how to say things and… It's not how it sounds.”

“Not how it sounds?”

“Remus, I'm sorry,” Sirius says, reaching for him before arresting the motion. They are still learning one another, after all, and still aren't comfortable touching one another.

“_You're _sorry? What in the world do you have to be sorry for?”

“Remus-”

“Why wouldn't you think I was dead? I certainly never gave you any reason to believe I was alive while you were there. It's not as though I came and visited you, or wrote to you, or asked you for your side of the story, or tried to have you released. I might as _well _have been dead, as far as you were concerned.”

“Are you being facetious?”

He stares at Sirius in disbelief. “Am I _what_?”

“Only… I don't know whether I dreamed you doing those things, or whether you -”

“No,” he says with difficulty, forcing his voice to remain steady in spite of the lump in his throat. “I wish I _were _being sarcastic, but I'm not.” Like a breaking wave, the enormity of his actions – _in_actions – crashes over him. “They took you away, and I never once questioned it or tried to do anything about it.”

He thinks of Sirius as he was back then, _his _Sirius, all calm arrogance and assured smiles on the outside as far as everybody else was concerned. Beneath the surface, though… He had known every single one of Sirius' self-doubts and fears. Most people wouldn't have known that there were things Sirius was afraid of, let alone what each of those things were, but Remus knew because Sirius allowed him to see.

_You must have been so scared when they came for you. They took you away from me, and they hurt you, and I did nothing to stop it. I don't even know what they did because I never bothered to find out. I believed like everybody else, but I **wasn't **everybody else. I should have known better than everybody else._

I used to know **you **better than everybody else.

“Remus, it's all right,” Sirius says gently, tentatively placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently.

“How can you say it's all right? I used to look after you – you wouldn't do anything without asking me what I thought first, and if anything went wrong, I was the first person you told. You trusted me, and I left you to _rot. _There's nothing 'all right' about any of that.”

“I _didn't _trust you. Not then. I kept things from you, Remus, but none of that matters, not if we don't let it,” Sirius says, sighing when Remus refuses to look up at him. “I told you, it came out wrong, what I said. I didn't mean it the way it sounded.”

“No? I was somehow able to combine my insane jealousy of your devotion to James with being able to believe without a doubt that you were responsible for his betrayal and murder. And that's _all right_, is it?”

“It's not all right,” Sirius agrees. “But it doesn't matter anymore, because I forgive you. I already said that, back when I saw you again for the first time. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“You should be furious. You should _hate _me for what I did.”

“I don't hate you,” Sirius says, still in that infuriatingly assured tone. “Why do you want me to?”

_Because the Sirius I remember would be furious, and if you aren't, then you aren't my Sirius. My Sirius was so fiercely loyal, it frightened me. I saw what he did to himself when he failed one of us. I used to wonder what he would do if one of us failed him. He wouldn't tell me that none if it had to matter if we didn't want it to. He certainly wouldn't try to convince me that it was **all right**. _

“_Why _aren't you angry?” he asks desperately, wanting to reconcile this milk-and-water stranger in front of him with the thunder-and-lightning Sirius he remembers from before.

“I don't- “ Sirius frowns, looking lost. “I don't know why, but I do know that I don't. Remus, I don't care about the other things because I spent more than a decade thinking you were dead, and you're _not_. I thought I'd lost you forever, and then I found you again.”

“Oh, well. That's excellent, then,” he laughs, unable to help himself. “That makes it all better.”

_You're pathetic, Lupin. All you had to do for forgiveness was defy the odds and survive and all of your debts are paid. _

Sirius' expression darkens, but his voice is still calm when he says, “Why can't you accept that I've forgiven you?”

“It's not that simple, you can't-”

“It _is _that simple,” Sirius replies, a snap of impatience entering his tone. “You told me why I should hate you, because all of the things you've supposedly done to hurt me. If I can't give you absolution, then who can?” By the end of that, Sirius is almost shouting. “Why can't you accept that I've forgiven you?” he repeats.

“Because _I _haven't forgiven me,” he says, entirely seriously.

Once again, Sirius stares at him in silence for an age before responding.

“I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to that,” Sirius says finally. “Fine, then. I'll leave you to convince yourself you should be forgiven. Or not, or…or whatever you're thinking. Thanks for the wand. Don't bother trying to contact me before you've pulled your head out of your arse.”

Sirius shoves past him, slamming the door behind him, and a while later, he can hear Sirius and Buckbeak letting themselves out with enough banging and crashing to wake the dead.

Evidently, if Sirius wasn't angry before, he certainly was when he left.

It's a small victory, and there is no joy in it.

~~*~~

_Moony, can I see you? _

It was only five words written on the back of a scrap of parchment torn from one of Harry's letters to Sirius.

And so here he is, as per request, following a trail that even a rabbit wouldn't credit to a cavern in the mountains near Hogsmeade, sitting on rocks and making stilted small talk over tea as though he's making a social call to an elderly aunt.

“I didn't notice the bickering between them,” he says, in response to Sirius' observation that Harry's friends – Hermione and Ron – seem to be capable of nothing but. “Then again, they weren't talking to one another for most of the time I was there.”

Sirius smiles in what might be amusement, before blowing into his cup of tea to cool it.

“Speaking of not talking to one another…” Sirius ventures, still not looking up at him.

“We can talk any time you want to,” he replies, tightening his grip around the mug of tea in his own hands, not sure he's ready to hear anything Sirius has to say to him.

“I don't hate you,” Sirius says, setting his mug back down on the boulder that serves as a makeshift table as he gathers his thoughts.

The hollow in the mountains that Sirius has set up camp in is folded away from all sources of sunlight, and the firelight from the single torch Sirius took with him fills the space with a warm, orange glow, softening the lines on Sirius' face – probably his own, as well – and makes the shadows dance.

“I wish you'd believe me,” Sirius continues. “I know you think I should, but you're wrong. I can't bring myself to… to _care _about any of…” Sirius breaks off, with a laugh. “Perhaps I should have waited a little longer before writing you that note. I'm not doing this any better than the first time.”

“It's all right. Go on,” he says gently. Whether Sirius hates him or not, he would never have sent that note unless he actually _wanted _to see Remus.

“I thought you'd come for me,” Sirius says slowly. “It never once occurred to me that you wouldn't. I suspected you before, but I didn't ever think you would believe that _I _was… Well. Once a Black, always a Black, right? Perhaps I shouldn't have expected anything different, but I was sure you'd at least come to _see _me, even if you couldn't get me out of there.”

Sirius shivers as he says that, obviously reliving an unpleasant memory. He wants to reach out and touch the other man, but restrains himself. It would be wrong to offer comfort now, when he is the cause of the suffering.

“I was so careful, I didn't say anything to anybody, but I think I chanted it in my sleep – Remus is coming, Remus is coming – and they must have heard, because they would taunt me with it. They gave me these dreams, where I thought…” He doesn't ask who 'they' are, and Sirius doesn't elaborate. “Maybe it was out of pity,” Sirius starts to say with a shrug, “because after I'd been there about a week or so, one of the others told me you'd been killed. He wouldn't say where he heard it, or how he knew – it might just have been to get the dreams to stop so I would shut up and he could sleep. But I believed him – it never occurred to me not to.”

“Who was he?”

“It doesn't matter,” Sirius says softly, sadly. “He died a month or so later, himself.” Sirius shivers again before reaching for his tea. “So I thought Wormtail and I were the only ones left, and once I took care of him… I didn't much care what happened to me. I didn't expect Harry to want to have anything to do with me. I certainly didn't expect to see you again.

“Yet there you were, and I thought, well… I don't care about your never coming for me. It doesn't matter, because I have you now, you're _here_. We both are. And there's nothing to say that if you had come for me back then, that if you had believed in my innocence, that we would have one another now. They might have thrown you into Azkaban with me, and we might've both died there. But we didn't. In spite of it all, we're both alive, and we're _here. _I don't hate you, Remus, I don't know how I'm supposed to show that I don't aside from simply telling you, but I don't.”

And even still, part of him has trouble believing it. Sirius doesn't tell lies, because his loyalty requires him to be honest, but he _does _play games. _I wonder if you realise that this is the most lasting impression your parents have made on you, _he thinks, trying to choose his words carefully. While he doesn't doubt that Sirius is telling the truth, part of him _knows _that there is more to this than appears on the surface.

“You still don't believe me, do you? Of course you don't,” Sirius says, anger and frustration starting to creep into his voice.

“No,” he says firmly, determined not to shy away from this. “I don't believe for one _second _that you never hated me once you found out that I was alive and never did anything to try and help you.”

Sirius looks startled, and then smiles as though everything is all right again. “Ah. Well, that's different, isn't it? I only said I wasn't angry now – I certainly never said I'd never _been _angry when I found out you were alive.”

And there it is.

It probably doesn't occur to Sirius that to most people, there _isn't _a world of difference between the two statements. He grew up in a world of games, and Remus remembers that Sirius always felt oddly at home in it, sifting through lies and half-truths with a certainty that was only rivalled by Dumbledore himself.

And he finds that he is relieved to see that this part of Sirius – an aspect that caused him no end of trouble, but that he loved as dearly as he loved the rest of his Sirius – hasn't changed either.

“I was furious. I was… I couldn't _believe _you thought I was guilty. I wished you really _were _dead, because at least then you would have had an excuse for not- Does that make you feel better?”

“A bit,” he admits. Sirius gives him a look of frank disbelief, forcing him to add, “You wouldn't be my Sirius if you didn't hate me at least a little.” _And this… This was quite a bit more than just a little. _“So, that night, when you first saw me again and knew I wasn't dead, when we got our hands on Peter -”

“No, not then. Earlier. It was that Halloween night, I went running past your office and saw your name on the door, and realised you were still alive. I didn't know you'd only started that year, I thought you must have been there for years. At least.”

“You never came to see me afterwards,” he probes gently. “If you weren't still angry -”

“But I _was_,” Sirius says in exasperation. “You… You're deliberately misunderstanding me. I was furious. I was determined not to have anything to do with you. I couldn't believe I'd wasted all of that time mourning you to find that you were alive the whole time and hadn't so much as a lifted a finger to see how I was, let alone break me out of there. I was going to expose Pettigrew for the murderer that he was, force them all to recognise my innocence and then wait for you to come crawling for my forgiveness so I could tell you to shove off. I had a whole scathing speech worked out, too. I suppose I'll have to save it all just for Crouch.”

Sirius grins into his tea, just thinking about it, before adding, “See, but the important thing, Remus, is that I _don't _anymore.”

“What if you change your mind?”

“I already did,” Sirius says. “I was furious with you, and then I changed my mind, and -” Sirius puts his mug back down and reaches a hand across the table to clasp around his wrist. “I'm not changing it back. I should have had it out with you back when I thought you were the spy instead of keeping things from you. You said you forgave me for that – I never doubted that you meant it. Why would you think that I would say I forgave you if I didn't mean it?”

“Because I still don't know _why,_“ he says, setting his own mug down as well and taking Sirius hands in his own.

“Why? Because you could have told everybody how I was getting into the school and you never did. Because you could have told everybody about my being Animagus and you never did.”

“I should have,” he says, ashamed. “I should have said, but… Well, I'm glad I didn't.”

“You could have come to see me, and you never did – it cancels out, see? I remembered that you never spoke up about anything in school, and you never did anything unpleasant if you could avoid it – I should never have expected you to come and see me or try to free me, because it's just not the sort of thing you would ever have done, Remus, and I'd known that and loved you for it. It would have been stupid to then hate you for it.”

He must look distressed, because Sirius is rising, coming over to his side of the table, murmuring something that might be 'not the way it sounds', and squeezing his fingers. But the worst of it is that Sirius is right.

_I never spoke up for you, because I've never spoken up against anyone in my life. I never came to see you because I've always worked at avoiding confrontation… If Harry hadn't been about to kill you, I might never have said anything at all… _

“You interrupted me before I could finish,” Sirius says quietly, kneeling in front of him and smiling. Taking a breath, he continues, “Why did I forgive you? Because you came to the Shack that night, even though you knew you'd have to transform later on. Because when you got there, you didn't ask the children what was going on, or if they were all right – you asked _me._“

There's a lump in his throat again and he swallows it away as Sirius continues to speak, letting go of his hands before winding his arms around him.

“Because when the children all started to talk at once, and I couldn't speak properly anymore, you kept them from asking me anything further and answered their questions yourself. And when I decided I wasn't letting Pettigrew out of there alive, you said you'd help me kill him.”

“I don't know what they would have done to you if you'd executed him,” he says, pressing his face into Sirius' shoulder, unable to keep his voice steady, “but I wasn't going to let you face it alone.”

“And after all of that,” Sirius says fondly, tightening his embrace and pretending he doesn't know that Remus is crying, “you still have to _ask _what made me change my mind? There's no help for you, Lupin. None at all.”

~~*~~

 

“I missed you,” he tells Sirius, as he carries the other man to the bathroom. It's not that Sirius is broken, or can't walk for himself, but he's apt to leave dirty footprints on the clean floor. It certainly has _nothing_ to do with the fact that Remus simply likes touching Sirius.

“I missed you, too,” Sirius replies, tightening his fingers in Remus' sleeves.

“No, I mean… This will sound stupid, but I think I missed you more these last few months than I did the years before that.”

“It's not stupid,” Sirius says. “I know what you mean. It's different now that you're…you know…”

“Now that I'm what?”

“Now that you're my boyfriend again…” Sirius says, almost as a question and without quite looking at him.

For some reason, that makes him laugh. “Your _boy_friend?” He laughs as he says it, but stops when he notices that Sirius isn't smiling anymore. “My God, when you call me that I feel about seventeen years old.”

“Shut up, it's not my fault you're addled. What am I supposed to call you, then?”

“You certainly can't keep calling me your boyfriend, and expect me to keep a straight face. Your _boyfriend_, honestly,” he continues, as he sees Sirius' smile return. “Doesn't seem right, really, using that word to describe someone as old and – mmph…”

He cuts off as Sirius plasters a hand over his mouth.

“Stop that,” Sirius says playfully. “I won't have you talking about my boyfriend like that.”

“Your boyfriend's pathetic. Anyway, you're just _jealous_ because you can't have _my_ boyfriend,” he says, watching as the corners of Sirius' lips twitch.

“See, right now, you sound like somebody's teenaged _girl_friend,” Sirius laughs, as Remus sets him down in front of the bathroom.

“_My_ boyfriend's brilliant,” he continues, pleased to be able to make Sirius laugh. “He's clever, and brave, and _handsome_, and the most popular boy in the whole world, and just last year, he escaped from Azkaban all by himself and without any help from anybody else. _Your_ boyfriend, on the other hand, can't even -”

“You leave my boyfriend alone,” Sirius interrupts, smiling.

“It was only a -”

“No, it wasn't. It's not a joke if you mean it deep down, Remus. You're never to talk about my boyfriend like that again,” Sirius insists with quiet dignity. “I don't think I could ever make you understand or appreciate what I see in him, but I need you to accept that I _do_ see something in him. Even if it's only out of respect for me.”

“Sirius -”

“And I didn't do it all by myself,” Sirius continues, a soft crackle of anger underscoring his words. “I managed to escape because I was Animagus. And I don't think I would ever have been Animagus if it weren't for you. If you don't want to…to be my _boyfriend_ because you've moved on, then… Well, then that will be my problem and that will be all right. But if you don't want to be my boyfriend because you think you don't deserve to be, _that_ is _not_ all right.”

“I understand, but I'm still sorry for never -”

“Stop being sorry,” Sirius says shortly. “There's no need for any of it. I forgive you, I keep _telling_ you! Why won't you listen? There're a dozen places I could be right now, but I'm _here_, because I want to be with you.”

“I know,” he says penitently, “but I'm…”

“…a doormat,” Sirius finishes for him, one eyebrow raised in contempt. “Run along and fetch me some tea, then, if you feel you have so much you need to make up for. I'll be out in a minute,” Sirius adds, before stepping into the bathroom and slamming the door in his face.

He's taken aback at this uncharacteristic viciousness – for one thing, he doesn't think he's ever been dismissed so thoroughly in all his life. For another, he's not entirely convinced he deserves it.

Still, he has his instructions, and after settling the hippogriff into the spare room, he wanders toward the kitchen to make tea, his anger increasing with every step.

_Run along and fetch me some tea, indeed. I'm not your fucking house-elf, Black_, he thinks mutinously, determined to use teabags – which he knows Sirius hates – and magic to boil the water – which Sirius insists even pure-bloods don't do, since tea leaves should be added to the water just as it starts to bubble, and allowed to brew as the water boils. _As if he ever brewed a pot of tea in his life before leaving home. Stuck-up prat, nearly twenty years out of home, and still expects the royal treatment…_

All of these intentions vanish once he reaches the kitchen and sees the owl that is waiting there for him. It looks like one the school ones, and indeed, tied to its leg is a letter from the Headmaster.

“I'll send a reply later,” he tells it, before sending it on its way with a handful of Knuts.

He leaves the letter on the counter while he searches for their kettle. It's actually Sirius' – James' parents bought it for him when he moved out of the Potters' and into his own flat, so it is bright Gryffindor red. Fortunately, he'd used it when Sirius was last here, so it doesn't take long to turn it up again, and when he fills it with water and sets it over the fire, he tells himself that it's so that he can read the letter while waiting for the water to bubble, and not because he is pandering to Sirius' fussiness.

The letter, when he gets through it, is another, new nightmare.

_…not had the funeral yet, will try to keep it out of the papers until…returned from the dead, in a cemetery in Little Hangleton…Dark Mark…sending Sirius Black to inform the Order of the Phoenix…mind putting him up for a while after he returns…impersonating Alastor Moody…must warn others about the likely malicious use of Polyjuice…Ministry does not believe…would probably be for the best if they were left to me…Shacklebolt heading the search for Sirius Black, so he should be approached first…will contact you again soon…_

He sets the letter down and closes his eyes, not sure what to make of all of this new information – Voldemort returning from the dead, brought back by Peter…

_We really should have executed him last year_, he thinks, and then starts to laugh, because 'I should have' are the three words that could probably sum his life up best, except for those occasions when 'I was a fool not to' is more appropriate. Returning to the fire, he attends to the tea, thinking about everything he should have done and never did.

He doesn't want this awkwardness with Sirius to end up being one of those things he could have – _should_ have – done something about but never did.

_I'm not going to do anything that will make me regret Sirius_, he decides, as he moves the kettle off the fire and onto a tray.

The bathroom door is wide open when he arrives, the steam still dissipating and escaping into the corridor, but there is no Sirius to be found. _Where could he have_… The damp footprints leading out of the bathroom lead into the bedroom, and there he is. Fast asleep and still slightly wet, curled under the sheet and precariously balanced on the edge.

Part of him is tempted to set the tray down with a clatter, announce 'your tea, your majesty' and watch as Sirius falls out of the bed. The other part of him worries because of how far Sirius has travelled, and how obviously tired he is, and the fact that he has further to travel still, if he's to alert the Order.

Setting the tray onto the floor quietly, he shucks his robe and climbs in next to Sirius, scooping him away from the edge and curling up behind him.

_You came back to see me before going to tell all of the others _, he thinks as he strokes Sirius' side and watches Sirius' lashes flicker. _That means something. It must_ he tells himself.

Sirius prefers actions to words, and Remus knows, he knows, that Sirius wouldn't have come back to him unless he wanted to be with him. Sirius certainly wouldn't have let Remus touch him, let alone have him, in that cavern in the mountains above Hogsmeade if he were still annoyed.

_I can accept it, but I will never, **never**, understand it._

Removing his hand from Sirius' side, he is about to extinguish the lights when Sirius murmurs, “Don't stop.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Just now when you yanked me away from the edge. And I smell tea – did you use the bags?”

“I did _not_ use -”

“I can tell, you know. You think you can trick me, but I know when you -”

“I think you were right, earlier.” That shuts Sirius up. “Your boyfriend's all right. At least he isn't an intractable fussbudget about trivial things that nobody else cares about,” he says, punctuating his words with a kiss to Sirius' throat.

“That means I win,” Sirius says, opening his eyes and twisting around.

“Still want tea?” he asks, determined to change the subject, summoning the tray up onto the bedside table.

“Yes please,” Sirius says, rubbing at his face with one hand. “I need to tell you some things.”

He pours tea for both of them and waits patiently.

“After the Tournament,” Sirius attempts. “The Cup was bewitched into- Harry- “ Sirius growls in frustration, explaining, “I'm not sure where to begin.”

“We can discuss it later,” he suggests, handing one of the cups to Sirius. “I already had an owl from the Headmaster.”

“Oh,” Sirius says, managing to sound both deflated and relieved at the same time. “He asked me to tell you. He also wants me to tell -”

“The Order. I know. I suppose that means you'll be leaving soon,” he says, trying not to make it sound like a question.

“I might not be… It depends on whether… I mean, how am I supposed to rally the Order when most of them think I still belong in Azkaban?”

“I'll go with you,” he says, without even having to think about it. “I'll explain everything I know,” he continues, reaching a hand out to clasp Sirius', “about Peter, and how you were framed. And then you can explain the rest – you were there for what happened, after all…”

“There's going to be another war,” Sirius says quietly, tightening his grip.

It feels surreal – he's in his bed, warm under the covers with his boyf- with his _Sirius_. More than that, it's hard to believe that there's another war on the horizon when they're still picking up the pieces from the last one.

“But we'll be better prepared this time,” Sirius continues, trying valiantly to reassure him. _I always used to be the one who would reassure **you**…_“I think we even have a spy on their side, this time.”

It's probably Severus – particularly given that Sirius can't bring himself to say the name out loud.

“So the sooner we manage to alert everybody else,” Sirius continues, “the better -”

“I thought we might hold off until you recover a little. Put some of your weight back on, at least.”

“You're not trying to fatten me up with a mind to _eat_ me, are you Re- “

“I'm not messing around – you look like death warmed up.”

Of course it's an exaggeration, but it concerns him that a few months in the mountains have reduced Sirius to looking not much better than when he escaped Azkaban.

“Oh, _do_ I? I notice that didn't keep you from jumping me back in -”

“Sirius -”

“I'm not messing around either. We don't have that sort of time, Remus! After we're done, I promise I will eat whatever you put on my plate. I won't even care if you _do_ turn out to be doing it because you want to eat me. But _after_, Remus. We haven't got time to wait around until I start looking the way I did fifteen years ago.”

There is a way to respond to this, he tells himself, but he can't for the life of him think what it might be. If he says 'oh, but I don't care what you look like,' that will mean that he wants Sirius _despite_ the way he looks – and, by implication, that Sirius looks like death warmed up – and if he says 'no, I still think you're gorgeous,' then _that_ will mean that he only wants Sirius because of the way he looks.

“What if I said I wanted to eat you right now?”

It's not a brilliant rejoinder, but it's a hundred times safer than any sort of commentary on Sirius' appearance.

“I'd say, 'You don't want to eat _me_. I'm all skin and bone. You want to eat my big brother, he's _much_-'“

“That only works on trolls,” he says, taking Sirius' cup away from him and setting it back on the tray with a smile. “Come on. There must be something I can say to persuade you to take off your nightshirt.”

“You could close you eyes.”

“All right,” he says, complying. He can feel the bed shift under him as Sirius removes his nightshirt, can hear the rustle and flump as the garment falls to the floor. “Can I open them now?”

“No, not yet.”

Sirius' voice is much closer than it was before, and in another second, he can feel Sirius' mouth on his throat, Sirius' hands working him free of his under-robe and flattening him down onto the bed.

It is almost impossible to keep his eyes closed when Sirius' mouth moves to his chest and starts to scatter slick, wet kisses over it.

“Sirius -”

“Ssh, not yet,” Sirius says directly into his ear, before pressing his lips to each of Remus' eyelids. There is another shift in the bedsprings, and then Sirius is straddling his thighs with his hands on Remus' hips. “Or don't you like this?”

“No, it's not that,” he says immediately. Sirius usually leaves it to him to do what's necessary for both of them, but after each of the times Sirius has initiated matters, there has never been any doubt in his mind that Sirius is good in bed. _Extremely_ good, at least according to his own taste. But there is something else at stake here… “How much longer will I have to -”

“Oh, all right,” Sirius says. He can feel Sirius moving away from him, and then something is wrapped around his eyes, blindfolding him. “You can open your eyes now,” Sirius tells him.

“Sirius…” he calls out, kneeling up and trying to locate the other man by the sound of his voice. “Please, I want to see you.”

“You didn't need to see me that time in the cavern,” Sirius says. He sounds amused, but it's hard to tell without being able to see his expression. “Can't it be like that, again?”

“I didn't say I _needed_ to see you,” he points out reasonably.

Sirius moves closer to him, reaching for his hands. “Here,” Sirius says, kneeling up in front of him so that his legs are on either side of Remus'. “I'm right here,” Sirius says, wrapping his arms around Remus before kissing him on the mouth.

He can feel Sirius, hard and wet against his belly, and before it occurs to him that he may need to ask permission, he's feeling between their bodies, working his hand up between Sirius' legs and circling the tip of his finger around Sirius' hole. Sirius gasps into his mouth, shivering and pressing closer for warmth.

“This isn't against the rules, is it? It's all right if I play with you here?”

Sirius' lips curve into a smile against his own, and he knows from this that the blindfold is for play, not for punishment. He shouldn't be surprised – sex was the area the Sirius he remembers was most playful in, but he didn't play _games_ here.

“More than all right,” Sirius assures him, shuddering in his arms now.

“Lie back,” he urges, still with one hand between Sirius' legs, now using the other to ease him back onto the bed before moving to lie down on top of him.

Sirius relaxes into the bed, spreading his legs wider and giving Remus the perfect opportunity to replace his fingers with his mouth, slowly working Sirius open with his tongue. He moves his hand to Sirius' cock, observing that trying to establish a rhythm is harder to do with the blindfold than he would ever have thought. When Sirius starts to arch up, though, away from his mouth and into his hand, he knows he's not far wrong.

He can also tell from Sirius' high, quick breathing and frantic, almost convulsive thrusting that Sirius is close to orgasm. There's no point waiting for verbal cues, since Sirius has never been terribly chatty during the act – he approaches sex with the same intensity that he applies to everything else, no matter if he's happy or sad, angry or pleased.

“I wish you'd let me watch you when you come,” he says, sucking two of his fingers into his mouth before working them into Sirius, who twists underneath him.

“Remus -”

“You've no idea how good you look when you do,” he continues, feeling his way forward hesitantly, relaxing when Sirius pulls him down for a kiss.

“You want to take the blindfold off?” Sirius asks him, while wrapping slick fingers around his cock and stroking.

_Of **course** I do, you stubborn…_ If he says that, though, Sirius will demand to know why.

He can't think of why this should be anymore difficult than it was in the cavern over Hogsmeade, but then he realises that in the darkness of nightfall in the mountains, _neither_ of them could see anything, whereas here, he's the only one at a disadvantage.

It makes all the difference in the world.

“It's seeing you that does it for me,” he says, rather than answer Sirius' question directly. “Seeing the way you toss your head, the way your sweaty hair sticks to your face, the way your prick jumps just before you come… More than that, it's knowing that I'm the one who sets you off like that.”

“I do _not_ toss my-”

“Can you pass me my wand?”

It's a moment before Sirius palms it across, and even then, it almost falls out of their fingers because they are so slippery.

“Are we still going to- Are you still going to fuck me?”

“_Nox_.”

Even with the blindfold on, he can see the light at the edge of the blackness go out, plunging them both into darkness. Wordlessly, he holds his wand out and Sirius reaches for it and puts it away.

“Can I take off the -”

He's barely halfway through the question when Sirius starts to remove the blindfold, and once it's off… All he can see are shadows and shapes, but there is a sparkle of silver from where the little light from outside the windows hits Sirius' eyes, and he no longer has the sensation that he's about to fall off the bed.

“All right?” he asks softly, running his hands over Sirius' legs and smiling in the darkness when Sirius' arms wind around his waist and pull him forward. He steadies himself with his hands on either side of Sirius' body as Sirius reaches for his cock, guiding him into position.

“Do it,” Sirius whispers back, winding his legs around Remus' hips and digging his heels into Remus' buttocks.

“You should know, “ he says, dropping down to kiss Sirius, “that you will never be anything other than beautiful to me.”

Sirius laughs and does something with his legs, bucking up against him and enveloping him in that wonderful, warm, pulsing flesh.

And it occurs to him that perhaps this Sirius isn't so different to the one he loved before, because for probably the first time since they've been reunited, he's managed to say the right thing.

~~*~~

“Fucking – _Ow_, that hurt!”

It doesn't matter how careful he is – there is simply no way to anticipate what will happen next in a house where the furnishings don't seem to obey the laws of nature.

Ornaments aren't supposed to fling themselves at your head in an attempt to knock you unconscious. Books aren't supposed to try and bite your fingers off.

And that isn't even the half of it – for all Sirius' family's fussiness about blood and the purity of it, they've been remarkably careless as regards the amount of the stuff they've left lying around the place in little bottles. Granted, the little bottles look as though they've been cut from diamond, but even so.

“Remus!” There is a series of thumps as books fall from the high shelf, and then Sirius is at his side. “What happened?”

“It's nothing,” he says, annoyed – although not with Sirius.

When he reached for the tray of ink bottles, the wrought-iron work around the desk started to flow like liquid, forming itself into manacles for his hand – his filthy, _half-blood_ hand – and although he pulled away in the nick of time, he whacked his elbow against the shelf behind him, jarring it and sending the books tumbling.

It's the fourth time something like this has happened since they arrived, but as _all_ of the metalwork in the house doesn't bear him malice, he tends to drop his guard from time to time. In truth, he's more annoyed with his own carelessness than anything else.

“I'm sorry,” Sirius apologises for easily the hundredth time that day. “I _know_ the Compendium is around here somewhere. She's only tried to conceal it because it was too magically powerful for her to edit.”

What Sirius means by 'edit' is that his mad mother can't have blasted people she didn't like the look of out of the pages of the who's who of European pure-bloods. Since she couldn't selectively edit it – or destroy the thing outright – it's hidden _somewhere_ in this rotting mausoleum.

“It's probably right in front of us,” he offers lightly.

Sirius smiles back, and reaches for the fallen books, checking them over them quickly. “I don't think it's any of these. Where can she have…”

“If we can't find it, we can always use the tapestry, can't we? She can't have blasted _that_ many people off it.”

“True, but there's a Permanent Sticking Charm on it, so it's not as though we could roll it up and walk off with it,” Sirius says, still scanning over the books in his arms. “And it would take forever to copy out – no I'm sure the Compendium's around here somewhere. Besides, it will have a write-up about each family – particularly anybody who's been heir, or head of the house. It contains a _lot_ more information than– That _bloody_ door!”

Ever since they undertook the journey to alert the rest of the Order to the return of Voldemort, there are more people who not only know where to find Sirius, but who feel they need to call in on him regularly – something that conflicts powerfully with his desire to keep Sirius safe.

They've only been at the Blacks' ancestral home since this morning, but already they've had visits from Minerva, Mundungus and Kingsley. And since Sirius is the only one who can open the door, he's the one that needs to attend to it whenever it knocks.

“I'd better get that,” Sirius says, frowning. “Do you want to come, or…”

“I spent a year teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, Sirius,” he says, eyeing the wrought-iron work around the desk uneasily. “I'll be fine.”

“Be _careful_,” Sirius says, giving him a quick kiss before disappearing downstairs.

_How would I think, if I were Cassie Black_, he wonders, glancing around the room again. _Maybe I'd Transfigure it into something else? Or put a Disillusionment Charm over it, so that it looks like something else…_

Sirius' knowledge of the old, pure-blood families isn't what it used to be, and he certainly is no longer up to date on each family's political affiliations. The most effective way of doing so, Sirius insisted, was to make a quick trip to Grimmauld Place and find his mum's notes on the different families and their interactions.

They were certainly easy enough to find, but the pity is that Cassie Black appears to have gone mad, sometime in between Sirius leaving home and her eventual death, and so the pages upon pages of notes they found don't seem to make any sense. They'll start off as a journal recording which family she met with that day and what they discussed, but then leap to a detailed couple of paragraphs on why she prefers cucumber sandwiches to crumpets, to her suspicions that there's some sort of creature in the house that steals her hair combs, back to an observation that Jasmine Rookwood might be willing to consider allying with her in exchange for something or other.

All of which means it is necessary to locate the Compendium.

_Where could the wretched thing -_

“…gap in the security a mile wide, any of the others could exploit it! If even _one_ of the other prisoners escapes in the same way you did, there could be a mass panic!”

Frowning, he abandons his search and heads downstairs, following the shouting to the parlour on the ground floor. From up here, the voice sounds like Mad-Eye Moody's.

“That's up to the Aurors to attend to, surely?” Sirius replies smoothly.

“How do we know you didn't use Dark Magic to escape Azkaban?”

“You don't,” Sirius says with a graceful shrug. “You'll forgive me if I don't feel like discussing the subject further, Mad-Eye, but I -”

“Damn it, boy! What if others are able to escape in the same way? You owe it to -”

“I really hope you're not going to tell me I owe it to the Ministry to explain how I escaped?” Sirius asks sharply.

“That wasn't what I -”

“I'll tell you what, Mad-Eye. I'll tell you how I escaped if you can guarantee that I'll never be taken back there.”

“I can't promise that, Black,” Mad-Eye says, sounding apologetic.

“Well, then,” Sirius says softly, indicating that he's done with the subject.

He doesn't blame Sirius for not replying – Sirius was never very forthcoming with information about himself, for he could easily find himself at someone else's mercy because of that. _A lesson you learnt very early on, I suppose._ Sirius' reluctance to disclose anything about himself isn't new – if anything, his experiences over the last few years have made it all the more necessary.

“Hello, Alastor,” he says as pleasantly as he can, entering the parlour and taking a seat next to Sirius.

“Lupin,” Mad-Eye grunts in his direction, with a quick nod. “What's this I hear about you and Black traipsing about the countryside? Didn't you notice that there are still posters of him up on every street?”

“We weren't 'traipsing', we were alerting the Order,” Sirius says, sounding amused.

“It was at the Headmaster's request,” he adds.

“And if you'd been caught? _Anybody_ could have seen you while you were out, did you think of that?”

“We took the necessary precautions,” he points out, wondering whether or not Mad-Eye knows about Sirius' second shape, and not wanting to be the one to tell him if Sirius already hasn't.

“It was still an idiotic risk. What if one of the people you'd gone to visit tried to turn him in for the Ministry's reward? After all, _you_,” Mad-Eye continues, turning back to Sirius, “don't exactly have the best judgement when it comes to who can and can't be trusted.”

_Don't you dare. Don't you **dare** throw that at him_, he thinks furiously, already opening his mouth to change the subject.

“I don't know, Mad-Eye,” Sirius says, still with that flippant smile. “I'm not convinced that trusting nobody is the way to go, either. I know a man who suspected everyone and everything, and despite his _constant vigilance_, he was kept prisoner in his own trunk for a year.”

He can't tell whether Mad-Eye is glaring at Sirius, or whether that's his default facial expression, but he relaxes when the old man chuckles.

“Unfortunate, that. Shame Fudge let that Dementor get to him before he could tell us anymore. I'm sure young Crouch knew a great deal more about Voldemort's return than we managed to get out of him.”

“What are you doing in London, Mad-Eye?” Sirius asks, managing to colour his words so that the questions comes out meaning 'what are you doing _here_'.

“Our Headquarters have been discovered, so from now on, you're to send any reports directly to Albus by Patronus.”

“Discovered? By who?”

“Need you ask? By The Ministry, of course,” Mad-Eye spits. “That boy of Arthur's – Percy – carried word to them, probably on the same day he was told. We cautioned Arthur that information like that was only to be passed to those who could be trusted with it, but how do you tell a man he's not to trust his own son?”

“Does Arthur know?” Sirius asks.

“Not yet,” Mad-Eye says gruffly. “We only found out this morning, though, so it won't be long until he does.”

“Poor Percy,” Remus says, more to himself than to Sirius or Mad-Eye. He can remember the self-important Head Boy from his year of teaching, and can't believe that he could have betrayed them like that. Then again, Percy had shown signs of being another Crouch in the making.

Mad-Eye snorts explosively. “Poor, nothing. He'd already cleared out of The Burrow – Molly's devastated, of course. Anyway, so now the Ministry is monitoring our Headquarters. We can't have them know that _we_ know that they know, so we're still using it for unimportant things. Matter of fact, I think Vance and Podmore are there, now.”

“Why can't we use Hogwarts?” he asks.

“The Ministry's appointing one of their own to the school,” Mad-Eye replies, with barely concealed contempt, “to oversee how things are run, what the students are taught and so on.”

“Can't you refuse?” Sirius asks, sounding surprised.

“We could, but it would cause more trouble than it's worth,” says a voice from behind him.

“Professor Dumbledore,” Sirius says, gesturing to one of the chairs in the parlour and inviting him to sit down. “Won't you join us, please?”

He's probably the only one in the room who can sense the sarcasm in Sirius' voice.

“Thank you, Sirius, but I am afraid I am unable to stay long. I thought I'd drop by on my way to the Ministry – I'm due for my two o'clock lecture, which from memory is probably about what papers and magazines the students should be allowed to subscribe to. I'm sure I can pass by again after my five o'clock scolding on why the Goblin Wars shouldn't be covered in History of Magic.”

“I was just telling them about the new arrangements, now that our Headquarters have been discovered,” Mad-Eye says, standing to join Dumbledore.

“You're welcome to use this place, if you want,” Sirius offers. “There're plenty of rooms, and it's spelled from top to bottom with security charms and protective wards. “

“The ancestral home of one of the oldest pure-blood families in English history…” Mad-Eye muses, oblivious to the expression on Sirius' face, “…it's the last place anybody would suspect.”

“It's a very generous offer,” Dumbledore concedes, glancing around the place. “Is it habitable, though?”

“That can be put right,” Sirius says, waving a hand dismissively.

“You mentioned protective wards… What are they keyed to? One of the family heirlooms?” Mad-Eye wants to know.

“I'll worry about the wards,” Sirius replies, not answering the question directly, meeting Mad-Eye's gaze and avoiding Dumbledore's.

Sirius never went into too much detail about what family life was like, but Remus has the impression that the Blacks would have bound their wards using blood rather than jewellery. It wouldn't surprise him to find out that the Blacks used Dark Magic, either. It's no wonder Sirius doesn't want to elaborate further.

“Do you know how they work?” Mad-Eye asks. “They're fiendishly complicated things.”

“We're still alive, aren't we?” Sirius asks, with forced levity. Closing off and even hiding himself doesn't come naturally to Sirius. Rather, openness is something he forces himself to avoid.

“You might need to stay, then,” Dumbledore tells Sirius. “In order to ensure that the wards and protections behave as they should.”

Remus moves his left hand behind his back, so that the Headmaster won't see where he was bitten by one of the books earlier today, when Sirius was out of the room.

“For how long? You'd only need me to let you in and out when we have a meeting, wouldn't you? Or if you wanted to drop something off, or pick something up?”

“Yes, but the place has to be cleared of all malicious objects and creatures, first,” Dumbledore says, with a twinkling smile. “It wouldn't do to move a consignment of maps into here, only to find it was eaten away by doxies the next day. Either that, or you would need to take Alastor or myself through the sorts of charms used.”

Sirius hesitates, and it is only after years of watching him that Remus can see his struggle. _Stay here for as long as the Order needs the house, or explain to them the Dark Magic that holds the wards together…_

“I'll stay, then,” Sirius concedes. “For a bit.”

_You're forever torn between that what you wish for and that which you know will preserve your life._

~~*~~

Taking the key from his pocket, he slips it into the lock and turns it quickly, closing his eyes as he pushes the door forward. It swings forward as a normal door should – that is to say, _without_ trying to attack him, or collapse the ceiling onto him.

“It's taken off my arm, hasn’t it?” he asks Sirius, as he enters the house. “Only I can't feel it because it's swallowed up all of the nerves, as well.”

“No,” Sirius says, bouncing on his toes. “The key _works_. You see, I told you I'd take care of it. And now you can let yourself in and out without being attacked.”

“Mmm,” he says, stepping into the hall and giving the door a swift kick to close it. “And if it works for me,” _a half-blood **and** a half-breed_, “it should work for the others.”

“No, that's yours,” Sirius says as he tries to hand the key back. “I'll make another one to leave by the door. That way I won't have to keep answering it.”

“Are any of the others here, yet?”

“The Weasleys are – I think Arthur and Molly intend them to stay for a bit, take their mind off the Percy business. They're the only ones, though,” Sirius adds, sounding grateful.

Sirius is having trouble adjusting to the fact that he can safely be around other people, particularly when the other people in question stare at him, or whisper behind his back. Having spent nearly thirty years as a werewolf, Remus is used to such treatment. For Sirius, however, the sensation of being excluded, pushed aside or dismissed is new, and he doesn't handle it well. There have been several near-incidents where Remus has had to keep one of the others from saying something inappropriate.

“When did they get here?”

“Yesterday afternoon,” Sirius says with a sigh, leading him further into the house. “I moved your things into another room – it's across the hall from mine. They're clearing out rooms on the second floor, so we won't have to share a landing with them, but I still thought it would be safest to… You don't mind, do you?”

“No,” he says, determined not to read too much into it.

They can still share a bed at night, and if it comes to that, they can Apparate between one room and the other – the protective wards around the house are powerful enough to prevent the Ministry detecting the use of magic by a fugitive from the law. It's been nearly two weeks since the morning Sirius offered the place to Dumbledore, and on top of the protective charms already spelled into the house, there is now the added protection of the Fidelius Charm.

_To avoid more 'Percy business', no doubt._ Both Arthur and Molly are taking their son's betrayal and absence hard.

“And you'll be pleased to hear that Molly is joining you in your efforts to fatten me up,” Sirius laughs, as they reach the kitchen. There is no dust, no cobwebs, no sign that the kitchen has been uninhabited for ten years or more. “This was the first room she got the twins to do. Tea?”

“Only if you're making it,” he replies, looking Sirius up and down to see how much weight he actually _has_ put on. It's only been two weeks, but Sirius has filled out, and is starting to look better.

More importantly, Sirius agreed to let Remus cut his hair short. Despite the care he took with it, there is still one lock over Sirius' forehead that keeps tumbling forward onto his face and obscuring his eyes. It does so just now as Sirius leans over the fire, and Remus smiles to see it. More and more each day, he can see the teenager he fell in love with in this new Sirius' face.

Years ago, when they were still at school, it was one of the easiest ways of telling Sirius and his brother apart – both of them went to some trouble to ensure that their hair was swept neatly back, except that one stubborn lock of Sirius' would curl in such a way that it was impossible to pull it back or hook it behind his ear for long.

“How much are you making? You don't think I'm _that_ thirsty, do you?”

“I thought I'd make enough for everybody,” Sirius replies, always the diligent host. “We can expect Dumbledore and McGonagall in a few minutes. I think something's happened at the school.”

“It will be strange seeing them,” he says, staring at his feet. Apart from that brief visit of Dumbledore's before, and the day that he and Sirius cast the Fidelius, he hasn't seen the Headmaster – or the Deputy – since he was forced to resign.

“It must have been stranger being on staff with them,” Sirius says with a smile, flinging a handful of leaves into the cauldron.

“It was, at first. But then Severus was there as well, so that put things into perspective slightly. I might not have been Head of House like he was, but I had the job he wanted. Did I tell you about my first lesson with Harry's class?”

He tells Sirius about the Boggart, and about how Neville Longbottom defeated it, and Sirius laughs and laughs. He adores moments like this with Sirius, when he can _do_ something for the other man – even if it is only to make him laugh.

“Why did you resign?” Sirius asks, smiling and moving to stand closer to him. “You obviously loved it.”

“I had to,” he says, sobering slightly. “There was a new regulation introduced about two years ago, and once it came into my effect, the firm I was working for told me that my services were no longer required.”

“Did it require you to reveal -”

“No, my employer already knew about that. That's been required since around 1987.”

“You'll forgive me if I'm not up to date on the laws of the land? In more than ten years on that island, I don't think they once managed to deliver my mail on time. Or, in fact, at all, now that I think about it.”

“You should have complained,” he says, reaching forward to brush Sirius' hair out of his eyes, hooking it tenuously behind one ear. It won't be long before it tumbles forward again, but that's all right, because then he'll be able to push it back again.

“You think I didn't?” Sirius smiles and removes Remus' hand from his face, before pressing it to his lips. “Every _day_, at least one or another of us would complain, and nothing doing. They wouldn't even let us take out subscriptions to the Prophet, so we couldn’t even read about what was going on outside. I even said I'd share it with the other inmates after I was finished with the crossword.”

“Can't say fairer than that,” he says, as Sirius releases him and turns back to the tea.

“And then, the one time I do manage to get my hands on a copy of the Prophet,” Sirius says, referring to the copy of the Prophet that is framed and hanging on the wall in their flat next to the framed copy of the Wolfsbane recipe Severus was made to write out, “nobody would lend me a pencil to fill out the crossword.”

“Outrageous,” he smiles, watching Sirius ladle out a cupful of tea into a paper-thin, porcelain cup. “You'd think they'd deliberately designed the place to drive people slowly insane.” Sirius laughs, passing the cup – balanced on its equally thin saucer – to him. “Anyway, this _new_ bit of nastiness required that an employer not only know whether or not an employee was a werewolf, but if the employee _was_ a werewolf, they had to guarantee that employee's behaviour.”

Sirius turns and stares at him, speechless.

“ They say it's because if someone employs us and pays us a wage, then they are responsible for how we spend that money,” he says, trying to keep his tone light. “Oh, and they're also responsible for how we spend our time. Even when we _aren't_ working.”

It takes Sirius a while to gather himself, and when he does, it is to ask, “Is that why you accepted the position at Hogwarts?”

“That was the only reason it was offered,” he says. It was never stated as such, but he can accept that the position was offered out of pity, and not because of his skills in the area.

“And here was me thinking you hadn't tried to find anything since then because you were so pleased to have me back,” Sirius says lightly, reaching for his hand. “I'm sorry.”

“It's all right,” he says softly. It's taken him a while, but he's come to terms with it.

The doorbell goes off just then, and Sirius leaves to attend to it, returning with Dumbledore and McGonagall. Arthur and Molly join them, after Molly sets the children to dusting the parlour.

By and large, the conversation isn't terribly engaging. Voldemort's forces aren't operating in the open yet, and until they do, convincing the Ministry that another war is imminent will be difficult at best.

“On the subject of the Ministry,” McGonagall says, her distaste evident, “they've finally appointed their spy to our staff.”

“Yes, that's right,” Dumbledore says, absently. “Arthur, what do you know of Dolores Umbridge? She's been sent to fill the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching vacancy, and -”

He doesn't hear anything beyond that. He _certainly_ doesn't hear whatever Arthur's response is.

_Dolores Umbridge?_

This must be one of the Headmaster's jokes. It _must_ be, and yet nobody seems to be looking at him expectantly, ready to say 'Ha, got you, Lupin!'.

Nobody that is, excepting for Sirius, who hasn't taken his eyes off him since they sat down.

“Remus, wasn't there something about her in the Prophet just the other day?” Sirius asks.

“I don't remember seeing anything,” McGonagall says, sounding interested. “Do you still have a copy?”

“I'll check,” he says, getting up and heading for the study, relieved to be able to get away for a moment.

If it's been within the last few days, then they will still have it. The Prophet publishes the solutions to its crosswords a full week after the day on which the puzzle was first printed, so Sirius tends to hold onto the papers for at least that long.

Sure enough, there is a stack of Prophets on the floor. He kneels down next to them, verifying that they go back to two weeks ago.

_It has to be a joke, it can't be real. It **can't** be… What am I looking for, again?_

The words on the pages in front of him blur and swirl, but he flips the pages, looking for the malicious woman's write-up. There will surely be a picture of her if there's an article. She will have insisted.

She is the type.

“Remus?”

“I haven't found it yet, Sirius. I'll be down in a -”

“You won't find it,” Sirius says, kneeling beside him and shoving the papers aside. “There's nothing to find. I made it up. Remus, are you all right?”

“Am I- Of course I'm all right,” he says, forcing a smile. “I -”

“You aren't,” Sirius says quietly. “Her name, it means something to you, doesn't it? She's in the Ministry, and she did something to you, didn't she?”

“She's the new Professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Sirius. That's… That's _all_. I just… I was just thinking how I wish that _I_ was still -”

“No,” Sirius says softly. “No, that's not it. You were nice enough to Mad-Eye when he was here before – and he's a paranoid madman that would try the patience of a stone.” Sirius closes the distance between them, wrapping his arms around him from behind.

“It has to be a joke, Sirius. It can't… She can't really be the new Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. She -” He can't continue for a moment, and is grateful for Sirius, who is warm against his back. Sirius, who was the only one in that room to realise that everything wasn't all right. Sirius, who managed to get Remus out of the room before he exploded. Sirius, who has always seen things that others never notice.

Even when they were younger, Sirius was frighteningly perceptive and didn't miss much. Unlike Peter or James, Sirius would keep looking, watching even, and he used to wonder if it was a weakness that Sirius was trying to find. _If so, then you succeeded, but you never really made use of it._ It took him a while to realise that while Sirius _was_ watching for weaknesses, he did it out of concern for those he loved, and never to exploit them.

_Had it not been for you, I like to think I could have hidden my lycanthropy from James and Peter, at least while we were at school._

“Do you want to tell me, now? You don't have to if you don't want to, but don't try and convince me you're all right.” Sirius murmurs gently, before kissing him and rubbing his back soothingly. “Do you want to tell me who she is?”

“She's the interfering little _cunt_ who was behind- That regulation I told you about, just now? That was _her_ idea. They made her Senior Undersecretary to the Minister because she was protecting the jobs of 'decent wizarding kind'. You know what the penalty is for a breach of the regulation? Just for not being able to answer a random question about a werewolf in your employ, and not even if they've done something wrong? A five thousand galleon fine. _Five thousand galleons!_ Who would take that risk? And now, that toxic, toad-faced trollop has _my_ job!”

“Oh, Remus,” Sirius says regretfully, pulling back slightly so that they can look at one another. “I only wish I could tell you that it _was_ a joke.”

“I know you do,” he whispers back, turning to face Sirius. “I probably deserve it, anyway,” he sighs, letting Sirius clasp his hands.

“You _don't_ deserve -”

“I didn't want the job when it was first offered. I thought they were only offering it out of pity. But I was _good_ at it. I could make the students understand, and…” His voice drops to a whisper as he adds, “…they _liked_ me, and…”

“The ones that matter still will,” Sirius tells him. “We won't have anything to do with the others.”

“…and I went to so much trouble to find a Defence text that only brought up werewolves in the last chapter…”

He can't breathe. He can’t believe that this is actually happening.

“You're better than all of that,” Sirius says fervently. “You're better that all of that. You _are_.”

He's always been the one that other people come to for answers, for help, for reassurance. People _like_ having someone they can tell their troubles to – or better yet, someone who will listen sympathetically.

In the more than ten years he's endured without any of his old friends, he's almost forgotten what it was like to have someone show any interest in _his_ troubles.

“I'm sorry,” he says.

“Hey, now,” Sirius says, sounding frighteningly calm. “There's no need for sorry.”

“Do you think any of the others noticed?”

“Don't know. I wasn’t paying attention to any of the others.”

He manages a genuine smile in response to that and Sirius smiles back. “We should probably go back down,” he suggests.

“Are you sure? You can stay up here for a bit if you want. I'll tell them you're still looking for the article.”

“But you'll be on your own with the others…”

“I'll be _fine_ with them,” Sirius insists. “I know I look like a wreck, but you don't need to protect me. Not when you've been hurt, too.”

“No,” he says, determined not to let it get to him. “I'll be all right.”

“It doesn't have to be the way it was before,” Sirius says, and he smiles to show that it's okay. “We can take it in turns to be strong for one another. Really, I'll be _fine_ with the rest of them. If Molly Weasley looks at me like she still thinks I'm an untrustworthy mass-murderer, I'll short sheet her bed. Stop worrying about me. Stay here until you're better.”

“The longer I stay up here, the more likely it is that someone will offer to help me find the article,” he points out.

“Oh fine, have it your way,” Sirius says, standing and helping Remus to his feet, watching him closely the whole while.

“What is it?” he asks, worried that his eyes are red or something.

“Nothing,” Sirius smiles, as he moves towards the door. “I was just thinking… You can be _such_ a stubborn bastard, but there's nothing about you I'd change.”

“You're the only one who thinks that,” he says, following after Sirius.

Sirius was right – he probably never will understand what it is that Sirius sees in him, but that's all right, because he's always known that his Sirius sees things that others never notice.

And for Sirius' sake, more than his own, he can keep his doubts to himself.

 

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


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